A little way past the Thielman lodge, the trees on the right side of the track separated around a narrow path that led straight between the oaks and maples for something like twenty or thirty feet, then slanted west into deep forest. Leaf mulch and brown dry needles covered the surface of the path. Tom looked back along the track curving behind the lodges, and stepped on the path.
The lake disappeared behind him.
He came to the curve in the path, and went deeper into the woods. Dense woodland stretched away on both sides. Pale, almost white light slanted down through the canopy and touched leaning trunks and brushy deadfalls. Here and there white fog still curled in the low places. The path led down a gorge, a basinlike valley in the forest, up through a stand of walnut trees with nuts like tough green baseballs, and back to level ground.
Far off to his right, so deep in the woods that it seemed a part of them, a grey-green shack materialized between the trunks of oak trees and disappeared into the background as soon as Tom took another step. On the other side of the path, a shack made of black boards, with a small black chimney pipe jutting from its roof, was half-hidden behind the thick trunks of walnut trees.
Something moved in the woods to his right. Tom snapped his head sideways. Light diffused through massive trunks, and trees felled by lightning or disease slanted grey through the brown and green. He moved forward, and again sensed movement on his right. This time he saw the head of a doe lifting toward him from beneath the diagonal line of a dead branch; then the rest of the doe came into focus, and she bounded off through a clear patch of sunlight. The doe disappeared behind a wall of fir trees. On the far side of the patch of sunlight, the white splash of a face appeared against a dark background of leaves, then disappeared like the doe.
Tom stopped moving.
The doe snapped branches as it ran deeper into the woods.
Tom stepped forward again, looked around, and saw only the patch of sunlight and the grey diagonal of the fallen branch.
The path widened before him. Pale morning light fell on the long grass of a clearing ahead and on the pine trees behind it. On the other side of the clearing, the path would wind through oaks and pines until it came to a road—maybe the highway between Grand Forks and Eagle Lake, maybe some deserted county trunk road. It was a long way to carry stolen goods, but nobody could say it wasn’t secluded.
This theory collapsed halfway to the clearing, when the stone and glass side of a house appeared. He walked nearer. More of the house came into view. Additions of large mortared stone with windows in thick stone embrasures stood on either side of a small brown shack with a wooden stoop before its front door. A big stone chimney came out of the slanting roof of the right side. Bright pansies and geraniums grew around the front of the house.
Just as Tom decided to walk back to the lake, something stirred in the woods beside him. He looked over his shoulder. A burly, black-haired man in a red plaid shirt stood twenty yards away beside an oak. The oak was not larger around than the man. He crossed his arms over his chest and regarded Tom.
Tom’s throat went dry.
A door slammed, and in an instant the man disappeared. He did not shift his body or move in any way, he just was not there anymore. A raspy voice screamed “Who are you?” Tom jumped. A little old man in jeans and an embroidered denim shirt stepped down on the grass in front of the wooden stoop. He had a hooked nose and a seamed face, and long white hair fell straight past his shoulders from a widow’s peak. He was pointing a rifle at Tom. “What do you think you’re doing around here?”
Tom moved backwards. “I went out for a walk, and the path took me here.”
The old man moved nearer, holding the rifle on Tom’s chest. “You get out of here, and don’t come back.” His eyes were flat and black. Tom stepped back and saw that the old man was a woman. “Too many thieving bastards around here,” she said in her raspy shrieking voice.
Slowly, Tom turned around. Off to the side, the burly man in the plaid shirt emerged into visibility again.
“Get out!” shrieked the old woman.
Tom ran down the path.
Bitsy Langenheim was stooping over the ground near her garbage can in a tired grey sweatsuit, throwing the cans and bottles back in. She gave him a sour, hungover look. She tossed a vodka bottle at the can and missed. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing.”
“What were you doing back in those woods?”
“Taking a walk.”
“Stay out of there. The Indians don’t like it.”
Tom wiped sweat off his forehead. “So I learned.”
She grumbled at him and retrieved the bottle.
“Some men came to see you,” Barbara Deane said. She stood up, gripping her purse in both hands. “About ten minutes ago. I told them I thought you were still in bed, but they wouldn’t leave until I looked into your room. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” he said. “Who were they? Did you recognize them?”
“Ralph Redwing’s bodyguards.” She looked at the door, then back at him. “Is one of them named Hasek? He was the one who made me go up to your room.”
“Did they say what they wanted?”
She took a step toward the door. “Only to see you. They didn’t say any more.” She looked back at him. “I don’t have any idea what they wanted, but they looked awfully unpleasant.”
“I think they want to warn me away from Buddy Redwing’s girlfriend.”
She surprised him with a smile. All at once, she looked less anxious and not at all autocratic. She relaxed her hold on the bag and tilted very slightly back to give him the full benefit of her smile. “Buddy Redwing, of course, being too important to do that by himself.”
“I don’t think Buddy does anything by himself,” Tom said. “He likes to have at least one actual person around him.”
“I think I know what you mean.” She hesitated. “Did you have a decent sleep? The bed all right?”
“Fine,” he said.
“I’m glad. I wanted things to be nice for you. You’ll eat at the club tonight? I thought I might spend the night in my house.”
He said he would eat at the club, and asked if she were going into town.
She raised her eyebrows.
“Would you mind giving me a lift?”
“Well, I guess it would be a pleasure,” she said. “Yes, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be a pleasure.”
They went outside together, and Tom followed her across the track to a rutted double path slanting into the trees. It had been deliberately obscured by a leafy branch she tugged out of the way. A little way down a dark green Volkswagen beetle stood beside a wild azalea bush. Barbara Deane asked him to wait while she moved the car, and he walked far enough down the path to see a weathered barn at the end of a small field bordered by forest. She turned to look at him through the rear window when she had pulled the car out, and he ran back and got into the seat beside her.
“I keep my horse in that barn,” she said. “I ought to take him out and ride him every morning, but ever since the robbery, I get anxious whenever I’m away from home for too long. I guess I’ll get up early tomorrow morning and take him out for a run.” She pulled out on the track and moved slowly past the lodges.